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Saturday 15 August 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
Site updated on 10 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Dark Earth
Videogame (1997). Kalisto Entertainment. Designed by Guillaume Le Pennec, Sylvain Dousset, Frédéric Menne. Platforms: Win. / Dark Earth, an early example of the action Adventure form, is set on a sunless world, a future Earth shrouded in dust clouds thrown up by a catastrophic series of Meteor impacts (see Ruined Earth). A few cities remain, ...
Roger, Noëlle
Pseudonym of Swiss author Hélène Dufour Pittard (1874-1953), whose sf novel, Le nouvel Adam (1924; trans P O Crowhurst as The New Adam 1926), is about a wholly logical and unpleasant Superman created by gland transplants. Finally, after having invented a nuclear Force Field, he blows himself up. Celui qui voit (1926; trans Robert Lancaster as He Who Sees 1935) is ...
Brooks, Edwy Searles
(1889-1965) UK author, mostly of stories for boys in the earlier years of his career, from his first published story "Mr Dorien's Missing £2000" for Yes and No in 1907 into the 1930s, though he also wrote many Sexton Blake Library tales during these years; and mostly of adventure thrillers – including the 50 or more Norman Conquest books as by Berkeley Gray and the 30 or so Ironsides of the Yard books as by Victor Gunn ...
Marshall, Edison
(1894-1967) US author and big-game hunter, in active service during World War One; best known for his work outside the sf field, especially his many historical novels, though he began publishing sf early in his career with "Who is Charles Avison?" (April 1916 Argosy), an early Counter-Earth tale; the From a Frontiersman's Diary series (August 1919-January 1920 ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book ...